A man suspected in three violent home invasions in Maryland is a registered sex offender, and police said he had help with his crimes last week.

Kevin Ray, 33, had an accomplice when he committed a home invasion robbery and sexually assaulted a housekeeper in Bethesda Wednesday, police said.

“The second suspect didn’t go in immediately,” Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger said. “He went in after some period of time and joined the first suspect in the house."

That accomplice has not been arrested, but Ray has been charged in three home invasions and two sex assaults in the Bethesda case, a Tuesday home invasion in Wheaton and Friday in Temple Hills.

In Friday’s home invasion, Ray allegedly tied up six people – including a seven-year-old – and sexually assaulted a woman in the home, police said.

“The things that occurred in all three of these are evil,” Prince George’s County Police Chief Mark Magaw said.

Ray used credit and debit cards taken in the home invasions, police said, and a surveillance image of him using one of the cards led to him being identified and tracked to Kitty Hawk, N.C., where he was arrested Saturday morning.

Investigators searched a Temple Hills home where Ray had been staying and found evidence linking him to the crimes, police said.

“There was several handguns recovered, several items of clothing, wigs, masks,” Magaw said.

Ray was put on Maryland’s sex offender registry after his conviction of a third-degree sex offense in 2005. He also pleaded guilty in a 1995 manslaughter.

A woman who said she is Ray’s aunt said the family is being punished, too.

“This is dumbfounding to us,” she said. “This is not the person that we know. And we’re being made out in the media to be a family of thugs and some other things, and that’s not who we are.”

Ray is being held without bond. A bond review hearing was scheduled for Tuesday.

The Montgomery County state's attorney is exploring prosecuting Ray under a repeat offender law that could lead to him being locked up without the possibility of parole.

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